Sunday, October 29, 2006



Clocks have gone back today - now we seem to be racing toward Christmas. Had a very enjoyable weekend with Sarah, 15 year old daughter of best friend Liz. She arrived on Thursday and we enjoyed a nice relaxing Chinese takeaway before she rushed upstairs to MSN to her heart's content. It was quite funny listening to all these strange giggles coming from up there - as we've got a webcam she was a happy bunny. Friday we had a tiring but enjoyable day indulging in some retail therapy in the city centre. She really enjoyed it. We visited the MAC shop so she could have an expert demonstration on applying eye makeup. Bought some Lush goodies for her grandmother, who I know also and remember vividly since the year dot as Liz and I were brought up across the road from each other. We got home tired but happy and then found Andrew was on an earlier flight so there was just time for a quick cuppa before disappearing off to the airport to collect him. Wonderful to see him but brief as he then parked by the railway station, removed his trousers, transformed into his going out clothes (Sarah was under strict instructions not to look) and dashed off with his former colleagues for a leaving do. Sarah and I returned home and had a pizza. Saturday we had a lie-in as all needed it for different reasons. Arranged a hair appointment for Sarah at our local salon - they did a lovely job and are very friendly too. I will definately be going back there especially as their prices are much cheaper than town and parking is free too. Sarah also had some clip in hair extensions, coloured red that look stunning. She looked fab when she finally emerged. After a bite we went to see the Doctor Who exhibition which she really enjoyed. Afterwards we headed for Ikea as she had never been there before. She picked up a few nice things for her room, like a cushion, a new duvet set and a new rug, all in wild shades of pink and purple. Very funky. We bought some new plants, some new pots and some extra scissors for the kitchen and the garden. Finally returned home for a much needed gin and Andrew prepared a Woodhouse style chilli con carne, served with long grain and wild rice. Yummy. Sarah disappeared upstairs again to MSN, and had us in hysterics later when she said she didn't want to have a shower (would disrupt her beautiful new hair) but she announced that it was a well known fact that washing your hair more than once a day would lead to serious scalp irritation. Ah well, nice try. All collapsed happily into bed by 11.

Sunday morning and we gained an hour. Andrew has been gamely altering the clocks - you suddenly realise how many things have timers in them. Sarah announced there was a homework crisis in her art coursework so going out was impossible for her. We slipped out briefly as Andrew was desperate for more fish. As you can see above, our hunt was successful. Two new goldfish and two new shebunken. We photographed the moment of release. Enjoyed a delicious roast chicken lunch. Andrew in mega domestic mode then boiled up the carcase to make stock while roasting a giant pumpkin with loads of garlic. this was then whizzed up to make some of our favourite soup. Liz accompanied by Katie (middle daughter) turned up to collect Sarah at around 5, then we relaxed on the sofa. Tomorrow the week starts again....

Thursday, October 26, 2006


Ha!! The ironing monster is not slain, no. But it is significantly and mortally wounded, methinks. Some solid effort has reduced the size of the heap from a threatening and intimidating Ben into a gentle little hillock. This has put me in such a good mood (and it's stopped raining - hurrah!!) that I attach a recent photo of the garden. Enjoy.


Back from a fantastic long weekend in Edinburgh. My first time visiting the city, and hopefully not the last. I loved it. Pleasant, short flight up there - barely enough time for them to come round asking for drinks orders before the pilot started the descent.

Our hotel was very central - the Balmoral. The doormen wore full Scottish rig, including kilts,sporrans and rather cute little caps perched at a jaunty angle. Practically every time we went in or out, they were posing for photos with delighted American tourists.

The photo above shows me on the bridge with the hotel the very large building in the background on the top left. Unfortunately, our room looked out over the inner courtyard, so no view, but that wasn't too important as we spent most awake time out and about. Although we passed very little time there, we both agreed on the flight home that it seemed as though we'd been away for much longer, say a week. We crammed a lot in. We visited the National Gallery, did an open top bus tour, gawped at the Scott Memorial and the castle, went on an excellent and spooky ghost walk, took a posh afternoon tea, toured the shops (good Harvey Nicks) and walked our legs off sightseeing. What was also lovely was meeting up with Andrew's uncle and aunt, Heather and Terry. We visited the nicest vegetarian restaurant I think I've ever eaten at, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it. Called David Bann, it's very funky, excellent service, reasonably priced, and was deservedly buzzy and popular even on a Sunday night. H & T are vegans, so they really enjoyed having a wide choice of items from the menu. The photo of Andrew shows him at a pitstop at a really nice little wholefood cafe and juice bar we found off hte Royal Mile in one of the little closes.

A short week at work this week, as I am off today and Friday, as Sarah, best friend's 15 year old daughter is visiting. We're planning some retail therapy in the city centre, a Chinese meal out and some Art GCSE coursework for her to do. I'm sure we'll fit in some other stuff too. Weather is currently atrocious with gales, intermittent heavy showers and much cooler. Fortunately, there's plenty of space and indooor activities we can think of to ensure she (and we) have a really good few days. Have just spent the morning catching up with the housework, and will shortly have a quick bite to eat, a shower then do some ironing before she arrives this afternoon. Unfortunately, the ironing monster has been growing uncontrollably and now growls threateningly at me when I go into the spare bedroom. An hour spent on the board will tame it again!

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Wet and dark now in the mornings. Autumn is with us. Had our service area union meeting this morning. Greatly enlivened by our street cleaning shop steward rather spectacularly falling asleep in the meeting, much to the mirth of everyone present, including the other union guys. We are now all thinking of a variety of new nicknames for him. Other items on the agenda included our Christmas working arrangements, a restructure in the waste collections area, an update on the budget situation (Grim), and an assortment of odd gripes including a wobbly ramp, queries about fuel and some moans about the vehicle wash. All in all, relatively quiet though.

About a gazillion emails this afternoon. Also had a phone call from my boss. The recent budget freeze which we had enacted in our service area is now being eased - they realise we are a front line service with big political impact so want us to keep working. This is excellent news.

Tomorrow I am on a training course run by our Internal Audit people on Investigative Techniques. We have such a number and variety of these investigations in our department - the ingenuity and creativity of a bin man with money on his mind never ceases to amaze me.

When I got home from work, I went out to feed the fish and sat out in the garden, just admiring it. It looks fabulous. Tomorrow evening, Andrew's parents come to visit for the weekend. They are really looking forward to seeing it, after all the work we have done. I just hope it is dry over the weekend as we are hoping to visit a local garden on Saturday to look at their autumn trees.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

I wish all weekends were this good.

Friday night, we went out with Matt and Jo. Matt is Andrew's squash partner, and Jo is one of their former colleagues, who works at a nearby local authority. She's currently flat sharing with Matt and his partner, Ty. We started out in Salt, which was incredibly smoky, very puzzling as there didn't seem to be anyone actually smoking in there. Maybe they have reverse air conditioning? They also were playing music at a volume that even Matt and Jo (who are bright young things not fogies like me and A) couldn't talk over. The other weird thing, while we're on the subject was the way they kept dimming the lights and then suddenly would turn them back up to the top of a halogen white scale - the overall effect was of a naff 80s pop video with lots of dry ice and spotlights - all we needed was the big hair to finish the effect.

We escaped to Nando's for a bite to eat, which was great fun, then on over to the Water Quarter, which had funky decor and was fun and finally back to Mimosa until they threw us out after 1 o'clock. A great evening.

Saturday went down to see Aunty Floss, who is in her late eighties and truly wonderful. After having us all worried by being very ill last year, she has now pulled through and was looking great. She has an incredibly hectic social schedule, knits profusely and is sharp as a needle. Had a great lunch followed by a run in the car then took her back home. Returned home and had a quiet evening, to my astonishment found myself in bed by 9.45 and liking it. Just goes to show that I can't do late nights like I used to.

Sunday was an orgy of planting and yet more plant purchasing. We found another good nursery and filled the car with lots of lovely things. Andrew has now put down green slate in the corner of the garden, we have potted and planted so that now our main structural plants are all where they should be. We only now have to source our multi stemmed birch and the rowan.

Today was relatively quiet for a Monday. Did a site visit this morning to an area where there are lots of student and multi occupancy households causing problems with waste in their frontages. By looking at the rubbish and talking with local residents, it seems that we have some Polish and Somali residents - we will probably need to think about producing literature in these languages to ensure they can better understand how to manage their waste. Spent the afternoon in arranging greatly reduced and limited opening hours for our public conveniences. We have a number of staff off sick and a vacancy and the current budget crisis means we cannot use agency staff or overtime as a remedy. So public services will suffer.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006


Lots more developments in the garden. Yesterday, the trees arrived which was very exciting. We also received one of our cases of wine - a much needed delivery from Dr Laithwaites - I like his prescriptions - they cure many things. Suddenly the garden looks very full even though we have not yet put them in their final spots.

Andrew then madly began to fill a skip with stones as darkness fell. Heroically, he shifted all the stones that have been dug out of the garden into the skip ready for collection. I took some photos of it this morning before I left for work and have uploaded one. The mysterious door is one we bought from Ikea that was originally planned to be a door for a bathroom cabinet, but either it didn't fit or we didn't want the length (can't remember which now). The plan is now that he will gravel over the area where the stones were resting and plant the delivered trees this weekend. This will ensure a presentable appearance in time for the visit next weekend by his parents.

Continuing the theme, we were invited tonight to the In Bloom presentation evening event at the City Hall. It was a lovely evening and very touching to see so many people being recognised for their efforts as they planted beautiful flowers - I find it quite inspiring. There was a full complement of nominative determinism at work, including a Mrs Plant and several other similar names. The City Hall is a magnificent building - Edwardian civic splendour, built in an era of pride and confidence. Andrew actually went to the same horticultural college as our Parks manager - seperated by about two years I think. We were seated at the VIP table - I still find that vaguely embarrassing . I just feel that as a bin/litter person, we are used to being in the bottom of the pecking order; it's a nice change when our efforts are recognised. The Parks manager and I had a quick chat about the current budget crisis - we've agreed to swop saving proposals. Should be interesting.

Sunday, October 01, 2006



Thought I would post a couple of photos here of the garden. As you can see, we hit a dry spot in the middle of the day. Still more to do, but we will probably wait now until the big stuff is delivered on Tuesday before planting anything else. With my work hat on, I'm invited to our city In Bloom presentation night on Wednesday evening at the Civic Centre. Should be good. Fortunately Andrew is invited as well.
The rain is hammering down on our lovely new plants. Yesterday, we went to two nurseries, as we have finally begun the most exciting and fun bit of the garden - stocking up on plants. Our first stop was an excellent nursery over in the west of the city specialising in trees, specimen and architectural plants. Most of what we ordered is being delivered on Tuesday. This will include a liquidambar, a very small acer with delicate purple leaves, a spectacular phormium, a Chinese fire bush (can't remember its proper name), an eucalyptus and a wonderful black stemmed bamboo. We had hoped to buy a rowan, and the main tree, a multi stemmed birch but they didn't have the variety of birch we particularly wanted. However, they are receiving more stock in, later this month, so I think we will be OK. As well as these larger specimens, we took with us five ferns, for the dark corner near the house. Plus an elegant palm.

Then on to our nearby Blooms. A full trolley worth of smaller plants and a variety of pots. Plants included a holly (not variegated, thankfully - I hate variegated hollies), three Japanese anemones, an orange pyracantha, a beautiful scarlet dogwood, prostrate rosemary, a santolina, a potentilla, a sedum, a smaller bamboo, three alchemilla, three aquilega, another beautiful phormium and a couple of bushes and climbers whose names I can't remember. Also a grass to go in a pot - a departure for me, as I am not generally a big fan of grasses, so this is an experimental toe in the water. We were hoping to return today and purchase some colourful bits to make up some baskets and pots - things like pansies, ivy, cyclamen, etc. The rain is incredibly heavy though - we may need to wait.

When I woke up this morning, it was so exciting to be able to peep out of the window and see plants in our garden - it already makes such a difference. If the light improves later on today I will try to take some photos and post them here. At the moment, the rain is so heavy the sky is virtually black - not suitable for photos at all.

Friday went extremely well - our presentation seemed to be well-received. I wore my new pink shoes - they looked stunning and were a great confidence booster. The judges will now be visiting us for the announced visit week commencing November 4th, allowing us some time to prepare and make a few minor improvements.

The morning was made dramatic and exciting by D's performance - any trip with him always seems to be memorable. Firstly, he'd packed one of his smart formal shirts but then realised he hadn't packed his cufflinks. Secondly, new suit bought for the occasion from Markles and Sparkles (which I must say looked fantastic when he finally appeared in it) still had security tag attached to trousers, so he had had to wrestle with removal by use of hotel teaspoons in his room and ended up with blue dye all over his hands. Cuff links were solved by an early morning visit to Northampton Tesco and wearing two long screws (yes, really!) through his cuffs. Quite enough excitement for one day. I can't wait to see what happens on our next adventure.